A plane crash AND a shark or two? Deep Water seemed like it had two main ingredients to easily keep me happy and entertained. It's also directed by Renny Harlin, which is something I would have viewed as a plus about 20 years ago.
Aaron Eckhart and Ben Kingsley play the two main men in the cockpit, and their passenger list includes the very annoying and entitled Dan (Angus Sampson), young Cora (Molly Belle Wright) and her stepbrother, Finn (Elijah Tamati), and a number of people who will become more and more disposable as the danger level increases. What should be a standard international flight is turned into a disaster by a fire in the cargo hold, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing in the ocean, fortunately close to a coral reef that helps to keep sections of the plane from immediately sinking down into the depths. And then some sharks start to realise that they've basically had a takeaway dropped off for them.
Starting off well enough, everyone is given obvious little moments to allow viewers to identify them once the sharks start circling, Deep Water quickly takes a bit of a nosedive, no pun intended. The cheesy and formulaic nature of the whole thing is only fun while it doesn't feel cheap and lazy, but it's not long until it starts feeling cheap and lazy. Six writers worked on this, SIX, and none of them do enough to make this as fun as it could be. Not only does it suffer in comparison to Harlin's own work (Deep Blue Sea remains one of the best shark movies from the past few decades), but it's also not quite as good as the very similar No Way Up. Maybe a better Harlin from the past could have saved this with his direction, but the Harlin of today doesn't seem capable.
Eckhart tries his best in the lead role, playing his reluctant hero as expected. He's matched by the young Wright, doing even better than many of the older cast members around her. Sampson is enjoyably loathsome, making you root for the sharks each time one seems close enough to eat him up, and everyone else seems to have come straight from their "How To Play Generic Characters In A Weak Ensemble 101" class. Nobody is helped by the screenplay, but some seem to be trying notably harder than others.
Without the benefit of a bigger budget, Deep Water should have at least piled on the ridiculousness. A dangerous criminal/psycho on the plane would have livened things up. An important cargo of refrigerated organs could have also added to the fun. Sadly, you just get Harlin and co. working their way through what feels very much like a box-ticking exercise, with the more ridiculously entertaining moments hampered by the fact that they've already been done better in past movies. Sometimes by Harlin himself.
And yet . . . if you don't mind the varying levels of quality when it comes to the CGI, and you're happy enough to add yet another shark movie to your watchlist, then this will help pass 106 minutes without causing you too much pain. I doubt anyone will ever give it a second viewing though.
4/10
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